Gou was a member of the imperial family in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 1020 Regent
Dorgon stayed in the harem with Bumbutai for a long time and left only when it was dark.

When leaving, although Dorgon was reluctant, he also knew that he could not rush this matter. It would be fine to date Bumbutai secretly, but it would be too much if he stayed overnight in the palace. Don't forget that the Queen Mother Zhezhe was still there. He had kept his affair with Bumbutai a secret from Zhezhe. Once Zhezhe knew about his affair with Bumbutai, no one could guarantee what this woman would do given her cruelty.

Moreover, Bumbutai was not an ordinary concubine of Huang Taiji, she was the biological mother of the current emperor. Although Dorgon was a regent prince and held great power, he was not without rivals within the Qing Dynasty. Moreover, since Huang Taiji valued Han officials and implemented the Han system in the Qing Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty was no longer the tribal regime of Nurhaci's period. With the establishment of the Qing Dynasty under Huang Taiji and the gradual consolidation of imperial power, some Han rules were gradually influenced and accepted by the Qing nobles. If Dorgon wanted to live with Bumbutai, it would not be in accordance with the human ethics.

This was also one of Dorgon's concerns, so he was not bold enough to disregard everything. He also understood that this matter could only be done secretly but not openly.

After leaving the harem, Dorgon was about to return to his palace, when at this moment a man was waiting for him in front of the alley.

After taking a closer look, Dorgon recognized the person and walked over.

"Your servant greets His Majesty..." The man knelt down to pay his respects when he saw Dorgon. Dorgon smiled and raised his hand to let him stand up: "Get up. It's late. Why is the chief steward here?"

"I have come here specially to wait for your Highness." The person who came was none other than Wu Liangfu, the chief eunuch of the Qing Imperial Palace. Although Wu Liangfu was just a eunuch, he had served Huang Taiji in his early years and was a favored eunuch around Huang Taiji.

After Huang Taiji's death, Fulin was able to ascend the throne smoothly. Wu Liangfu did a lot of things in the middle. He was just responsible for the communication between the palace and Dorgon and those Han ministers. After Fulin ascended the throne, Wu Liangfu's position rose to become the chief steward of the Qing Emperor. It can be said that except for the Empress Dowager Zhezhe, Wu Liangfu was the number one figure in the inner court and held considerable power.

Nodding slightly, Dorgon gave Wu Liangfu a look. Wu Liangfu stood up and followed Dorgon to the side.

Dorgon's men were all far away, and there were only him and Wu Liangfu here. Moreover, in the night, they were standing in the shadows and were not easily seen.

"What's the matter?" Since there were no outsiders around, Dorgon asked directly.

"Your Highness, the Queen was not feeling well today and did not eat much for dinner. I asked the imperial physician to prescribe a tranquilizing soup for her. She seemed to be feeling better after taking it. I specially rewarded the imperial physician with five taels of silver..." Wu Liangfu whispered to Dorgon.

"Where is the queen now?" Dorgon asked.

"Before I came here, I had already helped the Majesty to sleep."

"Well, that's good." Dorgon nodded and said, "The climate in Liaodong is bitterly cold, and it is now the time of changing seasons. You must take good care of your Majesty's health. Send more people to serve you, and don't be careless!"

"Your Majesty, I understand. I will serve Her Majesty well according to your instructions." Wu Liangfu replied seriously.

Dorgon smiled and nodded, took out something from his bosom and put it into Wu Liangfu's hand, then patted him on the shoulder and said, "You are a smart and understanding person. Do your job well, and I will not treat you unfairly."

"Thank you for your reward, Your Majesty. I will serve you like a dog and a horse and will not let you down."

"Okay! Go!" Dorgon said with satisfaction. Wu Liangfu said nothing more. He bowed to Dorgon again before leaving. His figure quickly disappeared into the night and was never seen again.

After seeing Wu Liangfu leave, the smile on Dorgon's face became even more intense. Few people in the Qing Dynasty knew that this chief eunuch was nominally a person close to the emperor and the empress dowager, but in fact he was Dorgon's man. This was a secret, but it would not be a secret soon. For the sake of Bumbutai and his own power and status, Dorgon had already been planning, and Wu Liangfu was an important part of his plan.

A few days later, news came from the palace that Huang Taiji Zhezhe was unwell. The imperial physician diagnosed that Zhezhe had caught a cold, and prescribed some decoctions and asked her to rest. This situation did not attract much attention. After all, people eat grains, and even if she is the empress dowager, it is impossible not to get sick. Moreover, Zhezhe's body was not very good. When she was the queen, she often had minor illnesses. In everyone's opinion, since the imperial physician prescribed decoctions, it would be fine to rest for a few days after taking the medicine. But no one expected that Zhezhe's illness this time was so fierce that she became ill in less than two days. Not only did she have a high fever, but she also became confused. At this time, Dorgon, as the regent prince, could not sit still. He immediately pulled another regent prince, Prince Zheng Jirgalang, and several other princes to visit the palace and saw Zhezhe lying on the sickbed.

But at this time, Zhezhe was unconscious and unable to speak. Seeing this, Dorgon was furious and called the imperial physician to question him. Didn't the imperial physician say that it was just a cold? Why did he suddenly become so ill? He asked the imperial physician to treat Zhezhe as soon as possible and make sure to cure him.

At this time, the imperial physician was also panicking. According to the previous diagnosis and treatment, it was indeed just a mild cold, and the medicine prescribed was all symptomatic. How could the condition suddenly deteriorate to this extent? Facing Dorgon's request, the imperial physician kowtowed and apologized, sweating profusely, and said that he would do his best to treat the empress dowager, but the empress dowager was now seriously ill and the attack was fierce, so the imperial physician was not very confident.

Dorgon didn't care about that. He ordered the doctors to cure the empress dowager, otherwise if anything happened to her, the doctors would be buried with her. Hearing this, the doctors were terrified and tried their best to save the empress dowager. However, after several injections and medications, she didn't look very good, which made the doctors desperate.

At this time, someone suggested that since the imperial physician was useless, it would be better to find another way, and proposed to try to use shamans to exorcise the evil spirits. Empress Dowager Zhezhe's illness was strange, maybe she was possessed by evil spirits. If so, the imperial physician alone could not cure it, and the only way to solve it was to use the old Manchu method.

This suggestion was agreed by many people. Dorgon thought about it and said he could give it a try. He invited a shaman into the palace to exorcise evil spirits for Zhezhe in the Empress Dowager's bedroom.

For a moment, the great shaman in the bedroom was wearing strange clothes, a ferocious mask, and jumping around in front of Zhezhe's bed with magic weapons in his hands, singing songs with strange and difficult to pronounce, while the shaman's assistants were singing and dancing rhythmically in coordination with him.

The exorcism took more than an hour, and the shaman was sweating and panting. In the end, the shaman even made a bowl of so-called "holy water" and asked someone to feed it to the empress dowager. But at this time, the empress dowager Zhezhe was already dying and had no way to drink the water. She could only have someone pry open her teeth and slowly pour the holy water into her.

After drinking the holy water from the Great Shaman, Zhezhe's breathing became a little more stable and his complexion became better. Seeing this, the Great Shaman breathed a sigh of relief and said that the evil in the Queen Mother had been driven away by him. He asked the Queen Mother to have a good rest for the night and to decide whether to perform a second exorcism tomorrow. Everyone was very satisfied and sent the Great Shaman away, planning to continue tomorrow morning.

But no one expected that in the middle of the night of the same day, the condition of Empress Dowager Zhezhe, which had been getting better, suddenly worsened again. When the news came, before Dorgon and others could summon the great shaman into the palace again, Empress Dowager Zhezhe had passed away.

When she died, Zhezhe's face was pale and she looked in pain. After she regained consciousness briefly, she grabbed the bed sheet tightly with her hands, and her nails were broken with such force. When the great shaman arrived and saw how Zhezhe died, he told everyone sadly that this was God's will and it was not something that could be reversed by human power. Zhezhe's illness was not an ordinary illness, but an external evil, and even he could not do anything about it.

In this way, Huang Taiji's empress, the Empress Dowager of the Qing Dynasty, Zhezhe, died suddenly. It was only three days from the time she fell ill to her death.

After Zhezhe's death, Dorgon was heartbroken and killed several imperial doctors who had treated Zhezhe to bury her with him. He also summoned all officials in his capacity as the regent prince, gave Zhezhe a title of honor, and took care of the empress dowager's funeral.

After consultation with Han officials including Fan Wencheng, Empress Dowager Zhezhe was given the honorific title of Empress Xiaoduanzhengjingrenyizhuangminfutianxieshengwen. Her body was then kept for three months before being moved to Zhaoling Mausoleum in Shengjing and buried together with Huang Taiji.

After the death of Empress Dowager Zhezhe, Huang Taiji became the highest-ranking and most powerful prince in the Qing Dynasty. At this time, he proposed that since the emperor was too young, Empress Dowager Zhezhe and two regent princes had been assisting him in handling state affairs. Now that Empress Dowager Zhezhe had passed away, according to the etiquette, the emperor's biological mother, Bumbutai, the Holy Mother Empress Dowager, should take over the government and replace Empress Dowager Zhezhe and the regent princes to assist the emperor.

This suggestion was recognized by almost everyone. After all, Bumbutai had a noble status. She and Zhezhe were both empress dowagers. Since Zhezhe was gone, it was reasonable for her to replace her both from the legal and institutional perspectives.

Just like that, less than two days after Empress Dowager Zhezhe passed away, Bumbutai, the so-called Holy Mother Empress Dowager, jumped from a marginal figure to the most honorable woman in the Qing Dynasty and began her days as the Empress Dowager assisting in government affairs.

After Bumbutai came to power, she issued the first imperial decree, which was to confer a higher title on Dorgon. On the grounds of Dorgon's contribution to assisting the government, she conferred him the title of Regent of the Qing Dynasty and Prince Heshuo Rui, and doubled his salary.

As a result, the two regent princes who were originally balanced on the surface were officially ranked. Dorgon jumped from regent prince to regent prince, while Jirgalang remained regent prince. Although the positions did not change, the ranking was divided. Not only was there a huge difference in power, but even their salaries were quite different. It should be noted that Dorgon's annual salary as regent prince, which was doubled, reached 30,000 taels, while Jirgalang only had 15,000 taels, which showed the gap between the two.

(End of this chapter)